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      ‘We Didn’t Know What We Were Eating Tomorrow’: How Class Origin Shapes the Political Outlook of Members of the Parliament in Britain

      1 , 1 , 2
      Political Studies
      SAGE Publications

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          Abstract

          Most work in political science on class and political ideology is focussed on politicians’ class destination rather than class origins. Yet that is inconsistent with evidence in the case of the United Kingdom that the conditions of someone’s family upbringing do influence their politics. This article revisits the conceptualisation of class background in the current literature by redirecting attention to the sociological concept of class origin. We draw on in-depth interviews with 24 British Members of the Parliament to unpack how these political elites perceive their class background to have affected their political outlook and behaviour. Our results indicate that ‘class origin’ is more salient in the formation of Members of the Parliament’ political outlook than educational or occupational background. The manifestation of this political outlook is constrained, however, by party discipline. This tension in how British Members of the Parliament relate to their class origins has implications for how we think about the power of descriptive representation in politics.

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          Politics across Generations: Family Transmission Reexamined

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            Do Majority-Minority Districts Maximize Substantive Black Representation in Congress?

            Majority-minority voting districts have been advanced as a remedy to the underrepresentation of minority interests in the political process. Yet, their efficacy in furthering the substantive goals of minority constituents has been questioned because they may dilute minority influence in surrounding areas and lead to an overall decrease in support for minority-sponsored legislation. Thus, there may be a trade-off between increasing the number of minority officeholders and enacting legislation that furthers the interests of the minority community. Using nonlinear estimation techniques, we simulate the districting strategies that maximize substantive minority representation, and find that such a trade-off does exist. We also find that, outside of the South, dividing minority voters equally across districts maximizes substantive representation; inside the South the optimal scheme creates concentrated districts on the order of 47% black voting age population. In addition, minority candidates may have a substantial chance of being elected from districts with less than 50% minority voters.
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              White-Collar Government

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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                (View ORCID Profile)
                Journal
                Political Studies
                Political Studies
                SAGE Publications
                0032-3217
                1467-9248
                May 31 2024
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Department of Social Policy and Intervention, University of Oxford, Barnett House, 32-37 Wellington Square, Oxford, OX1 2ER, UK
                [2 ]Department of Sociology, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK
                Article
                10.1177/00323217241257006
                f13f92e7-4002-4edd-a92d-d381ad91ccc9
                © 2024

                https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

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